This invention relates broadly to the field of communications and relates, more specifically, to the gathering, processing and use of user-specific information, referred to hereinafter as “user profile data”.
In today's electronic world, in which people make use of a multiplicity of communications systems and services, it is important—both for service subscribers and providers—for users' profile data to be widely disseminated (subject to important privacy and security constraints) to allow personalisation of a number of services to be effected.
In telecommunications environments, the use of user profile data can be important not only from a practical viewpoint, in that the current physical location of a mobile subscriber must always be known for a mobile communications system to operate satisfactorily, but also, for example, from financial perspectives, in that mobile operators are able to recommend particular call tariffs in accordance with the nature, time, frequency and duration of calls made. Similarly, variations in users' whereabouts, throughout the day, can be accommodated by the use of so-called “Follow Me” services in which a subscriber can specify several alternative numbers which can be tried, in succession, in order to locate the subscriber at a given time.
From an Internet perspective, it has hitherto usually been the case that Internet shoppers and the like have had to provide e-tailers with personal information each time a purchase is made, which naturally gives rise to a labour-intensive and somewhat tedious on-line shopping experience. Although, over recent years, this latter phenomenon has become less prevalent, as a result of the use of what might be called “unitary” portals, such as Microsoft's Passport™ service, such approaches are still considered to offer a less-than-perfect solution, not least in view of perceived privacy and security concerns, and a lack of cross-platform compatibility.
Other, more general, proposals in the field of information access include directory-based access protocols in which specific items of personal information (such as e-mail addresses and public keys) are obtainable using a hierarchical directory system. These include the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)—an open protocol that allows user-specified network resources to be sought on the basis of the resource attributes (i.e. what it is, rather than where it might be found). However, the services (i.e. resources) made available using such protocols are non-personalised, meaning that even an authorised subscriber is likely only to have access to a directory of resources that are not subscriber-specific and which may not, therefore, provide the subscriber with exactly what is required.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide, particularly in a communications environment, a system for managing user profile data that overcomes or at least reduces these and other drawbacks.